Company Description
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851 by The New York Times Company. The New York Times has won 122 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper. The paper’s print version in 2013 had the second-largest circulation, behind The Wall Street Journal, and the largest circulation among the metropolitan newspapers in the United States. The New York Times is ranked 18th in the world by circulation.
Nicknamed “The Gray Lady,” The New York Times has long been regarded within the industry as a national “newspaper of record”. It has been owned by the Ochs-Sulzberger family since 1896. The paper’s motto, “All the News That’s Fit to Print”, appears in the upper left-hand corner of the front page.
Job Description
The New York Times offers 10-week paid summer internships to undergraduate and graduate college students who have decided on careers in journalism. The program begins in early June with three days of orientation in New York City. Internships are offered in news, audio, video, graphics, design, photography and political reporting (in DC). See listings and descriptions here, or below. Note that each internship has its own requirements. There are 30 positions between NYC and DC.
Deadline
The deadline to submit an application for the 2018 summer internship program is 11:59 p.m. New York time on Oct. 31, 2017.
Audio Internship
The New York Times is seeking a podcast junkie to intern with our Audio team.
You’re an avid podcast listener, and ideally someone who already has audio skills: you’ll assist producers in and out of the studio on “The Daily,” our flagship daily news shows, and other programs. Pro Tools experience is preferred.
In the past, our summer intern has helped pull archival tape for “The Daily,” log tape for an ambitious narrative project and sat in on all editorial meetings. We’re also interested in your ideas about how to grow our audience on social media: What’s the best way to promote audio on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram? How should we frame the content? Who is the desired audience and what else are they currently consuming? How can we better engage our community of listeners?
We want someone who knows the industry and the competition, and is excited to help make podcasts that break the traditional mold.
Interactive News Internship
Spend your summer with an agile team of mission-driven developers working in the newsroom at The New York Times. As an intern on the Interactive News Desk, you’ll write code that ships – with a byline. You’ll investigate and summarize stacks of interesting structured data. You’ll collaborate with journalists to quickly create new features in response to newsroom and reader demand, and rapidly correct errors when they occur. And you’ll apply robust technological solutions in smart, creative, scalable ways to make an editorial impact.
About The Interactive News Desk
Interactive News is a special digital projects team embedded in the newsroom of The New York Times. You’ll be working with editors, reporters, photographers, designers and other developers to build newsroom-facing tools and reader-facing projects that augment our digital news report.
About You
You are familiar with at least two programming languages. You can demonstrate taking a project from concept to completion beyond your assigned coursework. You are authorized to work in the U.S.
About The Position
You will work alongside other developers, designers and journalists. You will build web applications for enterprise packages, special events coverage and breaking news. Your work will be published and bylined and will contribute to The Times’s open source initiatives. Previous interns have built a facial-recognition app for our Congress team, constructed a photo firehose for live events, reported on the Olympics and covered local NY races.
How We Work
For client-side code, we write HTML5, classic CSS as well as some SASS. We also use vanilla JavaScript, jQuery and React. On the server, we use web frameworks such as Ruby on Rails and Sinatra, Node.js and Express and Django and Flask. We store data in MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB and ElasticSearch and we deploy our code in Docker containers to Google Cloud Services with Kubernetes. We use git and GitHub for version control and collaboration.
What You Should Submit
We’d like to see one to two finished projects, preferably including code. For each of your projects, briefly explain how you took the project from conception to completion. If you worked on the project with a team, please also briefly explain the nature of your contribution.
Instead of a cover letter, write us a short memo about what you want to accomplish this summer and what kinds of projects you love working on.
Video Internship
Are you a student with reporting and video production skills and an interest in the news? Spend your summer with the award-winning journalists in the video department at The New York Times.
What you’ll do:
You will work alongside our staff of reporters, cinematographers, editors and motion designers as we cover The New York Times to produce compelling enterprise, feature and breaking news video content. Your work will be published on NYTimes.com.
Who should apply:
Prospective interns should have experience with:
– Reporting
– Script Writing
– Editing video narratives in Adobe Premiere
– Editing motion in Adobe After Effects
– News experience is a necessity
We are especially interested in students with reporting and story research skills as well as candidates with motion graphics skills.
When applying for this internship, paste the links to your video work samples into the boxes provided.
We would like to see your work samples including an explanation of your role on each project.
This internship is open to juniors, seniors and graduate students.
James Reston Reporting Fellowship
James Reston — called Scotty by virtually everyone who knew him — spent 50 years at The Times, as a columnist, Washington correspondent and, ultimately, executive editor. Among the most influential journalists of his generation, he won two Pulitzer Prizes. He was also a talent scout of prodigious capacity, hiring and training some of The Times’s best-known journalists. He died in 1995 at the age of 86.
Only seniors or graduate students who have had at least one previous summer internship at a major news organization are considered.
Interns are assigned to various news departments — typically Metro, Business, Sports, Science, Styles or Magazine — where they receive reporting assignments and earn bylines on their stories.
The most competitive candidates for the Reston fellowship have usually had two or three previous internships, with a variety of clips showing breaking news, analysis and excellence in feature writing.
The goal of the program is to provide an opportunity for the fellows to stretch their journalistic skills with the help of some of the best reporters and editors in the country.
The first week of the fellowship involves orientation to New York City and The Times’s newsroom. During the second week, fellows begin reporting and writing stories under the guidance of editors and senior reporters. Some stories are assigned, but fellows are encouraged to pitch their own ideas. The internship also offers workshops led by ranking editors and reporters from across the newsroom.
To apply, upload a résumé, cover letter and five or more clips packaged as full-length articles, not as a page of links. Links to relevant social media accounts and published work are preferred, but not required.
David E. Rosenbaum Reporting Internship in Washington, DC
David E. Rosenbaum was a reporter and editor at The New York Times for more than 35 years, most of them in the Washington bureau, where he wrote about politics, economics and government policy. He was particularly adept at translating obscure government policies into lucid and accessible stories. A prize-winning writer with a keen eye for detail, he was a role model and mentor for countless reporters in Washington and across the globe. He died in 2006 at the age of 63.
In his honor, The Times and the Washington Press Club Foundation select an exceptional intern to report and write across a wide variety of subject areas in the Washington bureau during a 10-week summer internship. The position, which is co-sponsored by the foundation, is intended for aspiring reporters with a demonstrated interest in or aptitude for writing about government and policy. It is aimed at students who receive financial aid and who hope to become journalists in Washington.
The first week of the internship will be spent in New York for orientation. The remainder of the internship will be spent reporting and writing bylined stories from The Times’s bureau in Washington.
Applicants must be college seniors or graduate students with previous daily newspaper experience.
To apply, submit a cover letter, résumé and at least five clips packaged as full-length articles, not as a page of links. A 500-word essay on the applicant’s specific interest in Washington news is required. Applicants should also provide proof of financial aid from their college or university. Links to relevant social media accounts are preferred, but not required.
Audience Development Internship
The Audience Development intern will be empowered to work with the entire Audience Development team on The Times’s news desk. Potential assignments include daily programming of the main @nytimes social accounts, giving SEO guidance in breaking news situations, developing UGC storytelling projects, contributing to analytic research projects and working with colleagues around the newsroom on different storytelling projects. Assignments will vary based on the skills and interests on the candidate and the needs of the newsroom during the internship period.
To apply, attach at least three examples of written journalistic or analytic work, links to relevant websites and social media accounts, digital portfolios or other online properties you may have contributed to and a 200-word summary of your interest in working at The Times in an audience-focused role.
Thomas Morgan Visual Journalism Internship in Graphics
The Thomas Morgan Visual Journalism intern in graphics works closely with graphics editors, developing the skills to organize and present the news visually through charts, graphs and diagrams.
Morgan interns will receive assignments to design and execute graphics for publication in various sections of The Times — receiving credit lines where applicable — and participate in workshops with ranking editors, reporters and visual journalists.
Applicants should submit a cover letter, resume and samples of writing and graphic design work. Links to relevant social media accounts and published work are preferred, but not required.
Morgan interns must be juniors or seniors with news experience.
Thomas Morgan, who died in December 2007, was a reporter, editor and manager at The Times. He was a past president of the National Association of Black Journalists, and received lifetime achievement awards from NABJ and the University of Missouri, his alma mater. His honors include a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University in 1990 and induction into the hall of fame of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association in 2005.
In recognition of Morgan’s alma mater, students from the University of Missouri at Columbia will be given preference for one of the internships each year.
Thomas Morgan Visual Journalism Internship in Design
Working closely with art directors, the Thomas Morgan Visual Journalism intern in design helps design and produce pages and process art and photographs. The program aims to introduce the intern to newspaper design and to identify future designers for The Times.
Morgan interns receive assignments for publication in various sections of The Times, receiving credit lines where applicable. The interns also attend editorial meetings and learn the various production systems used at The Times.
Applicants should submit a portfolio that includes layouts, dummies and typography. Morgan interns must be juniors or seniors with news experience.
Thomas Morgan, who died in December 2007, was a reporter, editor and manager at The Times. He was a past president of the National Association of Black Journalists, and received lifetime achievement awards from NABJ and the University of Missouri, his alma mater. His honors include a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University in 1990 and induction into the hall of fame of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association in 2005.
In recognition of Morgan’s alma mater, students from the University of Missouri at Columbia will be given preference for one of the internships each year.
Thomas Morgan Visual Journalism Internship in Photography
The Thomas Morgan Visual Journalism intern in photography works with Times photographers and editors, shooting assignments for every section of the report. The goal is to give the interns a taste of news, feature and sports photography, as well as the opportunity to learn lighting techniques from professionals. Working closely with Times editors, interns are also expected to initiate enterprise projects apart from daily assignments.
Morgan interns get assignments for publication in various sections of The Times, receiving credit lines where applicable.
Applicants should submit a resume and portfolio reflecting a cross-section of their best work: portraits, features, sports and hard news. Interns are chosen for design, graphics and photography, and must be juniors or seniors with news experience.
Thomas Morgan, who died in December 2007, was a reporter, editor and manager at The Times. He was a past president of the National Association of Black Journalists, and received lifetime achievement awards from NABJ and the University of Missouri, his alma mater. His honors include a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University in 1990 and induction into the hall of fame of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association in 2005.
In recognition of Morgan’s alma mater, students from the University of Missouri at Columbia will be given preference for one of the internships each year.
General Requirements
Some internships are limited to seniors or graduate students; others also accept juniors.
Applicants must be authorized to work in the U.S.
Paid or for credit only
The salary for all internships is about $1,000 a week. For those who want it, housing in New York is available in the dormitories of New York University at rates ranging from about $350 to $450 per week, depending on type of accommodation.